Many persons with asthma are also allergic to common fungi and mold, and a reaction to those allergens can exacerbate asthma symptoms. Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham have received a $1.75 million, four-year grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, one of the National Institutes of Health, to better understand how a fungal reaction affects asthma and to search for ways to interfere in that process and reduce the severity of fungal asthma.

In collaboration with an international team of researchers, scientists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the U.S. have discovered the basis of Singleton–Merten syndrome (SMS). SMS is an infrequently described autosomal dominant disorder causing early and extreme heart calcification, as well as dental anomalies, such as early-onset periodontitis and root resorption of the teeth in affected patients, among other conditions.

Jean-Francois Pittet, M.D., professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, will take on the role of editor-in-chief of the flagship journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society, Anesthesia & Analgesia, in March 2016.

Chris Kyle, Ph.D., associate professor in the UAB Department of Anthropology, recently presented his research on crime in Mexico at a conference for diplomats, foreign policy think tanks and research colleagues in Washington, D.C. The Wilson Center Mexico Institute hosted "The State of Citizen Security in Mexico: 2014 in Review and the Year Ahead" Jan. 20, 2015.

Until recently, physical therapy was a foreign concept in China, which has about 30,000 rehabilitation professionals for 1.3 billion people. UAB training partnerships for students and specialists are helping to change that mindset. A UAB physical therapist and two Beijing alumni describe cultural challenges they face — and promising efforts that could bring benefits of therapy to more patients — in UAB Magazine.

During the past few years, technological innovations have opened up an entirely new way to approach scientific questions. Data-driven research starts with massive information sets — the genomic profiles of thousands of patients, for example, or millions of spam emails — and then searches for emerging patterns in that data. In the latest issue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s "Business Horizon Quarterly", UAB President Ray Watts, M.D., explains the way data-driven research at UAB is being applied to find novel treatments for disease, create new products and businesses and train the next generation of innovation-savvy students.

Epigenetic changes are implicated in a host of neural conditions, from Alzheimer's-related memory loss to depression. Now, a revolutionary set of molecular editing tools are allowing scientists to alter the epigenome like never before. In The Mix, UAB neuroscientist Jeremy Day, Ph.D., explains how he uses these techniques in his lab, and why they could lead to an entirely new kind of therapy.